While my cookie decorating skills aren’t really getting any better with the sugar cookie of the month, I at least got to try out a fun experiment in altering the recipe: swapping out the sour cream for canned pumpkin. I’m happy to say…success!

These cookies have a very subtle hint of pumpkin and fall flavors along with maple icing. You can save these for Halloween, or skip the pumpkin shape and decorations altogether. As you know by now, I’d rather have a tasty cookie than a pretty one.

Recipe
Pumpkin Sugar Cookies
By Baked NorthwestMakes about 32 pumpkin-shaped sugar cookies (you will only use half of the cookie dough)

Divide the dough into two parts and wrap each in wax paper. Refrigerate at least 1 hour. For the amount of frosting we are making, you will only use half of the dough. You can freeze the 2nd batch of dough for another use, or just double the frosting recipe!

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F.

On a clean, floured surface, roll out the dough with a rolling pin. Roll the dough so it’s about 1/4 – 1/2 inch thick, and use your favorite cookie cutters to cut out shapes of the dough. For these cookies, I used a pumpkin cookie cutter. Use a cookie spatula (better known as a pancake flipper) to move your cookies from the floured surface to a well greased baking sheet. Ungreased silicone baking sheet liners work great here too.

Bake the cookies at 400 degrees F for 8 minutes. You never want them to get too browned around the edges, or they’ll be super crunchy. We like ours on the softer side. Baking time depends on what shapes you cut your cookies into – we have adjusted baking times from 8-12 minutes depending on the size of our cookies. Let cool completely before frosting.

Frost the cooled cookies. If desired, decorate the pumpkins with fun jack-o-lantern designs. We used store bought black frosting for this, and it’s totally optional. Cookies keep well in the fridge for a up to a week, a few days at room temperature. Enjoy!

NOTE: I made a full recipe of the dough and only used half. This cookie dough freezes really well and can be saved for another use, or you can double the frosting recipe and go crazy and bake all of the cookies!

I know just yesterday was Granola Bar Day and now suddenly it’s Blonde Brownie day and you probably officially think I’m crazy and I probably am but I just REALLY have always wanted to give the below recipe a shot…and finally I had my excuse to execute it.

In high school, we found ourselves at a certain chain restaurant a lot. Like, there wasn’t as much back in our town then, and for some reason we always went to this “neighborhood” establishment because I was too busy being a teenager to really worry about where we were going, we just needed a place to “hang out.” Remember those days? Yikes. I wish I could quietly be at another table and watch my teenage self with my semi-responsible adult eyes that I have now. Or maybe I don’t. Anyways…

They had this dessert – I think then it was just called the “White Chocolate Blondie” but it came out in a sizzling hot skillet – and it was a blondie with a big scoop of ice cream on top and this ridiculous maple sauce. It was hot/cold, and it was the best flavor explosion my teen self had ever tasted. It was the one thing from that place that I loved to eat. Back then, I never thought about creating it at home. Over the last few years, I have told myself that this magical dessert would be recreated in my kitchen. I knew it probably wouldn’t be too hard.

Instead of making goals like, “Run for office” or “Do an Ironman” or “Save Money” I decide, “I need to make a different sugar cookie every month this year.” And so here we are. Month one. Sugar Cookie number one. I don’t really know if I can top this, they are easily one of the best treats I have ever created.

You see, this sugar cookie recipe is old, classic, and foolproof. There are so many fun directions you can go…Different frostings, different cookie cutters, different seasons…the possibilities are endless! One problem I have – I am the worst cookie decorator of all time.

But I will always say that taste trumps looks in the culinary world. Sure…it may look beautiful…but if it tastes bad, it’s all out the window. And so here we are. Basic, round sugar cookies…with maple frosting and crumbled bacon. Thank God for the invention of maple bacon everything!

I can’t really promise anything more amazing than this – there will be more sugar cookies…they just won’t be maple bacon. Most of the recipes this year will be using the classic sugar cookie dough recipe that Grammy used…a recipe that may be more near and dear to my heart than any other recipe out there. I’ll explore different ways to make these cookies fun, tasty, and seasonal! Now you know my goal and can hold me to it…And I will need to be sharing lots of cookies…

Part of me feels like you can’t bring out the Easter Bunny in you unless you have some carrots, so I served these at the Easter brunch I threw yesterday. Glazed in maple and brown sugar, you can’t really go wrong.

They were super easy to throw together ahead of time, I would just make sure you keep them as warm as possible before serving.

They look like boring ole' carrots...but there's a deceptively delicious glaze on these babies!

My mom either made this exact same recipe or one similar to it many years ago at Thanksgiving, and it was one of the first times I thought that maybe vegetables weren’t all that bad…This is a gateway veggie recipe.

Just an FYI, I halved this recipe and still had plenty as a side dish for 8 people at my Easter brunch.